


Arrival

by holysmotez



Series: Remake Deleted Scenes [5]
Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Deleted Scenes, F/M, Final Fantasy VII Remake Spoilers, Spoilers, Tifa's perspective, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24219154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holysmotez/pseuds/holysmotez
Summary: A tale of how Tifa found Cloud at the Sector 7 train station, and how events might have occurred a little differently in the Remake universe.   Remake spoilers.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Series: Remake Deleted Scenes [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1732945
Comments: 17
Kudos: 142





	Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> Saved the best and biggest Cloti-focused 'deleted scene' for last! This tumblr prompt asked for a fic that featured how Zack's survival might impact the way Tifa discovers Cloud at the train station. Let me tell you........I had some thoughts, clearly. This took some time, and maybe could use more polish, but I'm happy with how it came together. I hope you all do, too!

Tifa sighs, pushing the register tray shut. The barroom buzzes, her patrons laugh and smile, and she wants to feel glad for it. She loves the noise and the warmth of busy nights like this, and not because of the profit margin it signified. Any night that Seventh Heaven, her home, pulses with the life and laughter of her community, it reminds her of why she had toiled so hard to build this business in the first place.

But tonight, she fidgets. She counts down the minutes until she can close up, turn the lights off, and have her home back to herself. She had already gone around and closed all of her customers’ tabs, but most of them hadn’t picked up on the hint. She sighs, and sighs again as she makes a final count of the remainder of the gil from the register and logs it in her ledger. She hopes Marle doesn’t mind her being so late again. 

Putting aside the ledger and setting down her pencil, she closes her eyes. _Deep breaths. One. Two. Find your center. Control that restless girl, Tifa, so you don’t give her the chance to control you._

Master Zangan’s lessons always did help whenever she starts to feel this way. Like an infinitely restless, impatient-at-nothing little girl again, and one who might crawl out of her own skin if she has to stay in one place any longer. It had only gotten worse from the night before, and the night before that. 

Probably wasn’t a coincidence it all started ever since Barret finally looped her in on the plans he had kept so closely guarded to his chest. 

She had agreed with him. She _does_ agree with him. Eventually, they would have to escalate. Nothing would change - really change - until they could hit Shinra where it hurt, and shake the people from their complicity. What she found much harder to voice, let alone explain, was the anxiety that fogged her mind about what their results might end up looking like after the dust settled. 

And that lately, it felt like there was a charge in the air, and a shift in the earth. Change was on its way, like sensing an oncoming train before it had rounded the corner, and whether it was to carry them away or obliterate them on the tracks, she couldn’t know until it arrived.

The clock strikes five minutes to close. Patrons still dawdled, but Tifa still had something she kept in reserve for times like these. Making a beeline for the jukebox, she keys in the secret combination on its keypad. Biggs - Planet bless him - tinkered with the machine after she had once lamented to him about patrons hanging around too long after close. It jingles, its lights flash in a pale green, and her chosen special tune of _On Our Way_ flows out of its speakers and drifts out over the din of clinking glasses and laughter. 

Turning about to the patrons finishing up their drinks, she announces, “Alright everyone, closing time! Thank you all for your business tonight. We’ll be back open tomorrow afternoon. Be safe getting home. Last train leaves in twenty minutes.”

Grumbles and half-hearted whining answer her in reply at first, but all her customers thank her as they shuffle and stagger out from the bar. She collects up their abandoned drinks and puts up chairs, clicking her tongue whenever she comes across a small tip tucked underneath some forgotten glassware. 

The generosity of the slums never failed to astonish her. She always insisted on no tips, and gave generous discounts and freebies whenever she could manage in order to make up the debt to her community. She knew how hard life is out there in the undercity, but tonight puts her right back in the hole. But maybe it wasn’t just for her. As she pockets almost 100 extra gil, she wonders, too, just how many people out there know what their extra money is going towards.

She refuses to think about that anymore tonight, though. She needed to leave ten minutes ago. After shutting off the lights and locking the door behind her, she pockets the key and heads for Stargazer Heights.

When she knocks at the door of apartment 103, she winces for her slumbering neighbors when Rascal lets loose a loud bark from inside. A harsh _oh, shush!_ from behind the door quiets him, and the door flings open.

“Hey, Marle,” Tifa greets. 

Delighted, the crone alights, saying, “Well hello, my dear! Rascal’s been looking forward to seeing you. Hope he won’t be too much of a handful this time.”

“Sorry to keep the both of you waiting.”

“It’s no trouble at all. You’re doing me the favor, after all.”

That wasn’t entirely accurate. Marle was a friend of Avalanche, had practically adopted Tifa as her own granddaughter, and allowed her to live rent-free at Stargazer Heights. Agreeing to walk Rascal in the evenings wasn’t even close to covering the debt that she owed the wise old crone, but Tifa also knows better than to try and argue the point.

Marle hands over the leash and Rascal trots over the threshold, tail wagging. “You both be careful now,” she says.

“We will. Come on, boy.”

Only seconds into their walk, and it’s obvious Rascal has some pent up energy he needs to burn off. He spins, turns, spins again, and zigzags along on his leash, tail spinning like a top. He snuffles and snorts along the footpaths between the glowing and silent homes, taking in what must be a truly fascinating array of odors the slums have to offer. 

His curious nose also greets the few pedestrians who are out at this hour, and Tifa gently tugs him back when he gets a little too interested. She smiles and wishes her Sector 7 neighbors a pleasant evening as they pass, and soon they make a turn in the road and come up on the road just outside the darkened doorstep of Seventh Heaven once more.

Where she nearly trips over Rascal when he lurches to a halt. 

She’s about to chide him when his ears perk, and his entire body pulls taut. It’s as if a thunderbolt had struck him as his canine senses work out whatever is in the air. His only motion is his nose as it bobs up and down, nostrils flaring. 

“Rascal?” she says, almost afraid to reach out and to break whatever spell had come over him. Sometimes on their walks, he does get caught up in a smell - usually someone’s cooking - but she had never seen him quite this intense about it before. 

He barks once. He plants his nose to the dirt and starts them forward, toward the footpath toward the train station. Curious herself, she lets him lead her along. 

His nose snuffles along in the garbage-packed dirt and debris, pausing on occasion to check the air again. As he scampers, he leads them beyond the old factory, the plate pillar, and even beyond the train graveyard. Whatever it is must be, it’s as far as the train station, and she has to admit that she’s impressed that his keen dog nose caught on a scent this far. _Probably caught on the scent of a food cart_ , she figures.

She lets out a pained sigh, dreading the battle ahead of her that involves convincing the dog away from some poor cook. But when Rascal barks again, it’s the only warning she gets before he takes off. 

He launches like a rocket. The burst of speed tears him from Tifa’s grip, and she lets out a gasp when the leash handle burns her skin. “Rascal!” she calls, clutching her smarting fingers as she watches his loose leash dangle and skid along the ground behind him. “Rascal! Rascal!” she calls, which the dog utterly ignores as her voice evaporates into the smoggy air. She chases after him when he dashes over cobblestones and well past the entire line of food stalls.

 _Oh, shit._ Adopted granddaughter or no, Marle is going to kill her if she loses the dog on a train. Or under a train for that matter. 

She screeches to a halt, however, when she rounds the corner and finds Rascal stopped before a dark lump just next to the stairs leading from the train platform. Next to them, a train conductor in bright red uniform rests on his knee.

The lump shudders. No, not a lump. A _person_ , wrapped in a dark robe up like a quivering shadow.

Her heart drops to her stomach. _Oh, no. Not another one._

She’s not sure what comes over her, but she backs up and hides herself back around the corner, peering around to observe them. The conductor has his hair stuffed under his cap and the brim is pulled low on his brow. With the street lamp shining bright overhead, she can’t get a good look at his face. He puts his hand out for Rascal to sniff, then pets him behind the ears. 

The train’s engine hisses and sighs as it idles, but the station is otherwise silent and still, save for a couple of stragglers finishing up a smoke on the platform. Her ears strain, but in the quiet she can hear when the conductor says, “Well, hey there, big guy.” He leans in to look at Rascal’s collar as he says it. “Rascal, huh? Wait a minute…Rascal? You couldn’t be _that_ Rascal? Holy-! No _way._ I remember you! You were that flea-bitten runt that lived over by the Leaf House.”

Rascal barks, his tail spinning in a blur of gray. The conductor chuckles, scratching behind the dog's ears. 

Meanwhile, Tifa reels. This conductor had known Rascal when he was a puppy? Was _this person_ what Rascal had sniffed out, even after years apart?

The conductor stops petting him, and Rascal whines. He says, “I know, I know. I said I’d be back, didn’t I? Damn, I can’t believe how big you got. Someone’s been feeding you pretty good. Guess you found somebody to look after you, huh?” He turns back to the person under the robe. “Would you look at that? All kinds of old friends are showing up in Midgar, aren’t they buddy? Told you this would work out.”

He flashes his teeth in a smile as he says it, but in the next instant, he drops his chin, sinking into a sobered expression. The aura around him turns heavy and grave. With a weary sigh, he says, “I really hope this means I’m doing the right thing. I’ve gotta believe it.”

The person under the robe does little more than shudder and groan in reply. Tifa, meanwhile, can’t seem to move an inch. Her feet remain frozen in the dirt, not just because of the ghastly noise from the poor soul huddled on the ground, but also because of how familiar the man in the uniform is. His voice, too. Warm, animated, but guarded if you listened closely enough. _Where did she know him from?_

Rascal whines, wagging his tail and butting his head against the conductor’s shoulder. The conductor laughs, his good humor returning. “So, did you get yourself lost? I know the feeling, buddy. Well, hopefully whoever dropped your leash is somewhere closeby, and you’re reunited. Say, why don’t you stay here and keep an eye on my friend in the meantime? It won’t do if Shinra finds him before Tifa does. ” 

_What?_

Hearing her name drop from his lips shocks her enough to break her paralysis. With a step forward, she calls out to him. “Um, excuse me? Sir? Mister train conductor?” 

The conductor shoots to his feet. Her throat catches around her next breath when she spots a flash of eerie blue-green as his eyes meet her eyes for an instant, and in the next he bolts. 

“Hey! _Hey!_ ” she calls after him.

Without even acknowledging her, the conductor leaps onto the platform with stunning grace and tears off down the stretch of rain-slick concrete in a hurry. Rascal starts barking and barking, but doesn’t give chase. He stays beside the robed figure, just as the conductor had asked.

She, however, does run after him. “Hey! Wait!” she calls out, legs working to catch up. It punches her in the gut with the way this supposed stranger dashes off, behaving like a thief who knew they were caught. A very fast, very nimble thief at that. She’s fast herself, but this conductor is inhumanly so. He’s through the closest open train car door and slipping into the crowd of passengers before she can close even half the distance. “Wait!” she tries one more time, but the chime of the last train sounds. After a beat, its doors slide shut. The train whistles and starts rolling away. She huffs, powerless to stop it.

_What the hell was that about? How did he know her name?_

Rascal barks and barks. Tifa shushes him when she turns back around and makes her way back over to the platform stairs. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she soothes when the dog quiets, but continues to whine towards the retreating train. 

She lets the dog be for now, her attention drawn to the hooded figure who shudders beside him. They continue to quiver and tremble as she kneels down, and even with the new angle she can’t get a good look at their face. Their dark hood hangs down almost past their chin.

“Are you okay?” she asks. 

As she expects, the figure doesn’t answer. Just convulses and twitches. Rascal stops whining when she reaches to collect the end of his leash. As she rises, she reels when the glint of light bounces off a startling object by the hooded figure’s feet. It’s so large, almost absurdly so, that she can’t believe she hadn’t noticed it before: a massive greatsword spanning the length of an average adult person from pommel to tip. Its thick hilt rested in the upturned palm of the quivering mass.

The strangest part of all is that she thinks, like the strange conductor, that the sword strikes her as familiar somehow. She _had_ seen both man and sword somewhere before, hadn’t she? But when? He couldn’t have ever stopped by the bar, could he? She would probably have remembered someone like that.

“Ugh...gh…”

The rough, tortured voice from underneath the hood pulls her from her thoughts. From the tenor of the voice, the figure’s relative size, and the sharp cut of the chin she spots under the hood, it altogether strikes her as that of a young man. _So was Marco_ , she thinks with a heavy sigh. She had just convinced Marle a few days ago to put Marco up for the time being. Marle’s goodwill towards Avalanche was deep, but not infinite, and neither was her real estate. Marle wouldn’t appreciate Stargazer Heights being slowly converted into a makeshift hospital. What would Tifa do if more started showing up? Who were these people, and where did they come from? What happened to them?

This one, though, didn’t seem to have a number tattoo. Or maybe it was put somewhere else on this one. She doesn’t really want to know, and clearly, she wasn’t going to have those questions answered tonight as the robed man starts to writhe and groan again. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she starts, soothing as best she can manage, almost believing it herself. Rascal rests back on his haunches, sniffing the air around the figure with his own guarded curiosity. 

She cranes her neck to get a better look at the man’s face. Blond, spiky hair? That was unusual. And his eyes…

She reels, hand flying to her lip.

_They’re…_

Even in shadow, she _knows_ that blue.

She knows his face, too. It was a face she thought she might never see again. Even if she hadn’t committed his face to her lifelong memory, her heart hammers against her rib cage with its own recognition.

“Cloud?” she gasps, her own eyes burning with shock and disbelief.

She risks a finger to curl underneath the hood and tug it up past his pale brow. Her movement doesn’t seem to register, even when she brushes a stray spike of his hair away from his eyes. His adolescent features had filled in and sharpened from the years since she had last seen him, and his cheeks, jaw, and brow had all hardened with maturity. It was still a quite handsome face, even while sunken with starvation and exhaustion. 

His eyes, though. Though far off and glassy, those were definitely his eyes, his irises blue as twilight, except that they were shrouded in a swirling vapor. The diffuse light of the streetlamp reflects off of it like an eerie, odd-colored fog. 

She knew that color, too. The color of mako. 

“Ugh…” he groans, his eyes searching despite his apparent blindness. He blinks once. Twice.

“Oh my god! Cloud! Is that really you?” she asks. She moves to touch his cheek. Gently, not unlike the way that strange conductor had touched his shoulder.

The instant her skin comes into contact with his cold, clammy cheek, he blinks again, and the fog vanishes, though a trace of its mako color remains infused in his irises. When his eyes fix on her, they spring to life, like a fierce wind had swept away the storm. He gasps, gulping. Color flushes his face, and his sunken features reconstitute in an alarming and unnatural speed.

As the transformation occurs, he says, “Ti-...Tifa…?”

She struggles to find her voice, disturbed by what she witnessed. “Um, yeah, it’s me. Tifa Lockhart. Remember me?” She shrugs and tries to laugh, blinking away her sudden tears. The laughter erupts from her as a weak, pathetic chirp. “Long time no see, huh?” 

Cloud shuts his eyes. “Tifa,” he repeats, stronger but still raspy. He swallows thickly. In addition to looks, he certainly didn’t sound like a teenager anymore, either.

“Cloud, tell me. Is that really you?” she asks.

When he next opens his eyes, he swallows again, throat bobbing as he pauses with the question. He nods sharply. “Yeah. Me. That’s me.”

“Can you tell me your name? Do you know what day it is?”

“It’s-,” he starts, his eyes twitching about like he was wracking his brain. “Cloud. Cloud Strife, from Nibeliheim. Today is…” He huffs, shaking his head. “I have no idea.”

She puts a shaky hand to his shoulder and lets out a heavy breath, and with it, something in her chest feels like it’s bursting. “I can’t believe it. How did you end up here like this? And is that your weapon? Who was that guy who was with you?”

“I…” he starts. His gaze drifts down, past her, and grows glassy again. “I seriously can’t remember.”

Well, at least he remembered his own name. She says, “That’s...that’s okay. Let’s not focus on any of that right now. You aren’t hurt at all, are you? Can you walk?”

Cloud nods again. Tifa gives him the space, and he tries to stand. The second he lifts, he startles himself and curses when the sword grip slips from his hand and clatters to the stone street. Like he had no idea it had been there, or he had completely forgotten about it, too.

In his other hand, something crinkles. He unfurls his hand out from under his robe, revealing a plain-looking envelope. He turns it in his hand, looking equally surprised to find it there as he was his sword.

Tifa hadn’t noticed it, either. “Who’s that for?” she asks.

Cloud’s lip purses. Looks up to her to say, “I think it’s for you.”

“What?”

Cloud hoists himself to his feet with controlled and athletic grace, and without any apparent injury or weakness, as if he had not just been huddled like a decaying man on the ground. The robe that surrounded him slips from his shoulders as he straightens, its fabric landing on the ground like a shedded skin. Underneath, he’s strapped with a navy-colored, sleeveless knit sweater, even darker trousers, and leather bindings about his waist. The heavy epaulet bolted to his shoulder caps off his dreary, austere appearance in yet another shocking departure from the teenage boy she remembered.

He takes another glance at the envelope, shrugs, and holds it out for her to take. 

Sure enough, on its addressee side is written: TIFA.

She accepts it, looking it over. “Did you write it?”

“I…” he starts again like before. Suddenly, he flinches, wincing as he slaps his free hand against his temple. 

“What’s wrong?” She nearly drops the envelope when she rushes over to support him by the arm in case he falls over.

The spell over him seems to recede as quickly as its onset. “What?” he says, leveling a questioning brow as if _she_ were the one being weird. As if his episode hadn’t even occurred.

She rips her hand away from him and takes a step back. “Cloud, are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Then can you tell me why you’re here? In Midgar?”

“I-...” He winces again, eye twitching like he had been slapped. “SOLDIER,” he blurts.

“What about SOLDIER?”

“I…” Eye twitch. “I quit. I quit SOLDIER. I’m done with Shinra, only they don’t let you quit when you’re…” Twitch. “First Class. I must have taken a good hit before I wound up here.”

“I’ll say. Are you still in trouble now?”

“Doubt it. Hopefully, Shinra thinks I’m dead by now.”

Well, that was actually a relief to know before she brought him around Barret. “So you had joined up after all?”

“Huh?”

“SOLDIER? You joined up like you wanted to.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did,” he says with a quirk of his lip. A smile, almost. 

_He guesses?_ From how completely weird he was acting, nevermind the strangeness of the entire situation, that shallow smile is so out of place that it nearly makes her stomach turn out her last meal. 

“Right,” she says, devoid of enthusiasm, and his face falls instantly. “Come on. My place isn’t far. I bet you could use a warm meal and a place to sleep. Maybe you’ll feel better then.”

“I feel fine. But hold on, your place?”

“I own a bar around here.”

“That’s...wow. I guess it really has been a long time.”

“Yeah.” She tugs Rascal to come around. “Come on, boy. You too.” _Shit. Marle must be so worried by now._

Cloud follows them, his sword scraping against the concrete ground as he picks it up to join her. “Thanks, by the way.”

“What for?”

“For putting me up out of the blue. It won’t be for long. I promise not to be a burden on you.”

 _A burden_ , he says. “Not at all. I still can’t believe I’m seeing you again. Here and now of all places,” Tifa muses to him. 

“How long have you been in Midgar?” Cloud asks.

“Oh, about five years, give or take.”

“Five years…” Cloud repeats, distant.

Her stomach lurches again, her heart doing somersaults. Brain, heart, stomach, pretty much everything was all going a bit haywire. Nonetheless, she manages to say, “It's been so long that I hope you’ll stick around for a bit, actually. I can’t wait to catch up.”

“Right.”

He says it curtly, with finality, and says nothing more. No other questions, no follow-up. No, _wow, it’s great to see you again_ or a _holy shit, it’s been a while._ He’s just...silent as they walk. Blank. It’s unnerving. Like a SOLDIER, she supposes. Maybe that is where he’s picked up all these strange behaviors and tics.

But surely his attitude wouldn’t be this...this cold, this _perfunctory_ at best when he saw her again? Did he forget? Or maybe she did? He wasn’t always like this, was he? He was never all that talkative, but he always burned with a quiet determination that drew her notice to him all those years ago. He seemed rather devoid of all that now.

Or maybe he really didn’t think about her all that much after he left for the service. Maybe she had scared him off too badly after that starry night. It’s embarrassing to even think about now. A wish like that was so stupid to say out loud, and she feels so stupid right then. So stupid about her naive, teenage impulses. Of course Cloud didn’t think about her. He wasn’t the one thinking about them everyday since he left Nibelheim.

It was, frankly, a lot more disappointing a reunion than what she had imagined if she ever saw him again. She expected that they would have grown up and grown apart in some ways, but she didn’t expect their reunion to be this confusing. She didn’t expect for nothing at all about him to make sense anymore. 

The letter in her hand crinkles in her hand, and she wants with every fiber of her being to tear it open right then and read it in the middle of the street. Mercifully, Seventh Heaven’s broad banner comes into view, and it staves off that impulse. 

“There it is. Straight ahead,” she says, proud of how level her voice sounds. 

“It’s huge,” he remarks. “You built all of that?”

“Well, not by myself. You gotta make friends if you expect to survive here in the slums, and even more if you want to make a life for yourself.”

He huffs. “You were always good at that. Making friends.”

And that was the first thing he said that made her heart warm a little, and for the moment, it quiets her raging doubts. 

She stops them at the bottom of the steps to her bar where she hands him Rascal’s leash. “Watch him while I unlock the door.” He fumbles with the lead at first, but does as he’s asked and waits like a statue while she goes and returns from unlatching the door. “Go on in. Should be some lights still on behind the bar. Wait for me here while I bring Rascal back home.”

“He’s not yours?” he says, returning the leash.

She smiles down at Rascal, noticing that he was being rather calm around Cloud, panting with his mouth wide and eyes beaming up at him like the rotten angel he is. She says, “No. He belongs to a friend. Before I came across you at the station I was out walking him as a favor.”

“Too bad for him.”

“Huh? Why’s that?

“He seems to like you a lot.”

She chuckles. “I was just about to say the same thing about you. He’s not usually this relaxed around strangers.” The second she says it, she internally winces at her choice of word. _Strangers._

It doesn’t seem to bother Cloud any. “He’s probably just worn out.”

“I don’t know. Animals usually have a good sense about people, you know.”

Her own statement makes her reconsider the man before her. If Rascal thought Cloud is okay the way he is, then maybe she ought to pay attention to that cue. Maybe it isn’t Cloud who seems out of sync and abnormal, but rather her own expectations. Maybe she’s expecting far too much, all too fast. Maybe she just had to give it time for them to catch up, clear the air, and maybe their hearts would line up again like they had at the old well.

His eyes are so blue still, even with its tinge of mako. 

The silence stretches too long between them, long enough for him to notice her getting wrapped up in her thoughts. “Everything okay?” he asks.

“What happened to your eyes?” she blurts. 

“My eyes?” he parrots. He winces, the says. “Oh, the mako. All SOLDIERs get dosed with it when they join.”

“I see.” Her lip quivers, a question straining against them: _did you ever become the hero you set out to be?_

She shuts her eyes. She smiles. “Anyway, like I said, I’ll run him home. Then I’ll be back to whip you up a plate of our specialty.”

“You really don’t have to. Especially since I don’t think I have a gil left on me.”

“It’s no trouble, but if it bothers you, we can talk about that after.”

* * *

Marle, bless her, doesn’t give her as much of an earful as she expected when she returned Rascal to her door. Only about half of one, and Tifa derailed it when she mentioned a childhood friend showing up out of the blue at the train station. A boy, no less. She spared Marle the exact details of that discovery and his sickly state, however, and so Marle let her off the hook and thanked her for bringing back Rascal, worn out and in one piece.

“I can put Cloud up at the bar for tonight, but…” Tifa says to her, chest aching with yet another huge favor she was asking. “But if he sticks around any longer, he’ll need a room. I’ll find him some work to do so he can afford one.”

“You really want to help this boy, don’t you?” Marle says, studying her.

“Yes,” Tifa says, unable to help the way her heart thumps in her chest at what feels like an admission.

Marle’s lip curls up. “I’ll think about it.”

With that over with, and before she heads back to the bar, Tifa runs up to apartment 201 and puts the envelope in her room, shoving it underneath her pillow.

At Seventh Heaven, she’s pleasantly surprised to find Cloud the only one there, leaning against the wall just inside the door. In the back of her mind, she worried whether Barret, or god forbid Marlene were to happen across him without her here to explain.

“You can have a seat at the bar,” Tifa tells him. “Make yourself at home, really.”

Cloud glances at her, then to the bar, then back at her as if her bar counter were made from the coils of the Midgar Zolom. “You sure about this?”

“About what?”

“About having me around. A SOLDIER.”

“Don’t you mean ex-SOLDIER?”

“Well, yeah. But not everyone is going to know that.”

Great. First time she’s seen him in years and they’re already on the verge of an argument. She insists, “Just have a seat, would you? It’s my bar, so let me worry about what appearances are okay and not okay. Now _sit._ ”

That shuts him right up, and without further argument, he books it for the bar. He saddles himself onto a stool, lips turned sour, clearly still carrying a bug up his ass. The awkward silence that settles over them like a choking mist makes her want to kick herself. 

She distracts herself with getting the stove warmed up, grabbing some washed bowls and pans out of the cupboards, and gets to cracking and mixing up a few eggs. She dices some fresh onion, seasons some prepped potatoes, and soon the barroom begins to fill with the aroma of her warm cooking. 

Then, suddenly, a loud gurgling punctures through the silence. It kills the tension in an instant, and she grins when she looks over to him. 

He hides his face under his arm, but admits to her, “Smells good.”

Her grin never leaves her until, after a few more flips of her spatula and another few minutes in the pan, she presents him with a plate of an omelette and homefries, seasoned to perfection. She calls this place Seventh Heaven for a reason, after all. She knows it smells divine. 

She almost forgets all about the sorry state she found him in when he picks up his fork and starts to take a nibble. All too soon, however, her worries flood back to the front of her mind when, after progressively bigger bites, he practically attacks his meal, hardly chewing at all before swallowing down his next bite.

 _He really had been starving_ , she realizes.

The memory of the red conductor uniform flashes across her. She just had to find the right angle to approach Cloud with here. As he finishes off his plate - all but stopping short of licking it - she remarks, “You know, you were lucky I came across you.”

He puts his fork down. Shrugs. “Probably.”

“ _Probably?_ Not everyone here in Midgar is your old childhood friend, you know. You could have been robbed, or worse.”

“Um,” he starts, patting his pockets. “Well, who’s to say I wasn’t? I told you I don’t have a gil left on me. Shit, I can’t even afford the meal.”

“Afford-! Cloud, I couldn’t imagine charging you for this. You were starving-”

“No, I wasn’t. I’m not some stray animal you’ve taken in, Tifa. I can work off the debt. You have to let me make it up to you.”

“No, Cloud. This one’s on the house. How about the next time, you can pay me as much as you can afford, at least until you get back on your feet. You did just quit your job, after all, right? It’s okay to rely on favors for a little while, then.”

Cloud shakes his head, huffing. “I guess. But I can’t put you out like this. I can _work_.”

“Well, I guess I could use a dishwasher…”

“Tifa.”

“What? Too menial for a great SOLDIER?”

“No, that would just put me more in debt to you. I’m talking about mercenary work. And unless you know of anything like that around here, then I’ll plan on being out of your hair by morning.”

Her stomach drops, and feels the color drain from her face. She knows it’s desperate and panic-induced, but an idea strikes her. Whether a brilliant or a bad one, she doesn’t have the luxury right then to decide. 

“Well, maybe I do know of something like that. You really want to earn some money? Good money?”

He regards her, cocking his head. “I do.”

Tifa hesitates. Barret could throttle her for this.

“Tifa?” Cloud prods. 

_Screw it. Otherwise, he might end up leaving if he thinks he can’t afford to stay._

So she says, “Well, I do know someone. Someone who might be interested in having someone ex-military on this job. A merc who knows something about Shinra and how they operate.” She leans in closer and whispers, “He’s an Avalanche cell leader.”

Color dusts his cheeks as he leans back from her. “Avalanche?” he blurts. 

“Shh!” she shushes, finger to her lip. “Don’t say it any louder, ever. I’m sure you knew about Avalanche while working for Shinra?”

Cloud shrugs. “No. Never heard of it.”

“No? Shit. Guess Barret has a point if not even a SOLDIER has heard about us.”

“Who’s Barret?”

“Oh, he’s-“ _Damn it._ She was in for the pound now. “Look, Avalanche is what Shinra wants to paint as a criminal, eco-terrorist group. And we are, to some degree. Various cells around the city are all involved with shutting down their security networks and databases, spoofing IDs, stealing supplies from topside, destroying weapon stockpiles, that sort of thing. We’re pretty good at being a general nuisance to Shinra, but nothing really changes, you know? But this guy I know? Barret? He’s planning something big. Way bigger than any other cell has the guts to do. Something that’ll really put Shinra on its heels, and make them pay attention to all the suffering they’re causing.”

“That’ll be the day, but keep talking.”

“Alright, but I have to warn you that it’s a dangerous job. Really dangerous.”

He crosses his arms, and throws her a side eye. “Are you trying to sell me or dissuade me?”

Tifa huffs. “Just making sure I cover the informed consent part of the contract if Barret decides to hire you.”

“What makes you think he will if it’s such a risky mission?”

“Because I’ll be putting in the good word for you. If this is truly something you’d want to get involved in. Otherwise, I can probably scrape up some other outside work for you, but it might not pay as well.”

“Forget that, then. I’m willing to do this job if the price is right. I have no love for Shinra, and I don’t care if it’s Avalanche or whatever.”

“Okay then. Hopefully that’ll be good enough. I’ll speak to Barret in the morning.”

* * *

There’s an old storage room in the upstairs loft of Seventh Heaven. She hates to have Cloud sleep for now in what’s essentially an old, musty attic, but he tells her it’s perfect. He also tells her that the blanket and bedroll she managed to find for him is warmer than anything he’s had in the service.

She still couldn’t believe he was here. Actually here, after so long apart. Her heart beats so fast, even long after she bid him goodnight, and while she washes his plate in the sink. When had it ever beat so fast?

Back at Stargazer Heights at apartment 201, she fishes out the envelope from under her pillow. Alone at last, she stares at TIFA written across it for a long while before she musters the courage to pry open the seam.

_Tifa,_

_Been a long time, hasn’t it? Have to admit, I was surprised to hear that you, the same Tifa Lockhart, was out here slumming it in Midgar. Living the dream, and running her own business no less. Good for you. Figured this might be the last place you’d end up. But you were always the type of gal who knew her own mind, and made her own way, weren’t you? Reminds me a lot of my own sweetheart here in town. No wonder Cloud here has kept you close by his heart._

_If you're reading this, then I hope you’ve found him. He’s in pretty bad shape, I know. It must be a real shock to see your old friend like this, and for that I’m sorry. This is a lot to put on the shoulders of an old acquaintance out of the blue, and for that I’m sorry, too._

_But I don’t regret bringing him to you. Your name is the only thing he’s been able to speak whenever he speaks at all. You might be the only thing keeping him glued together. So when I say I was surprised, I was also so damned relieved to know you were in Midgar. It just has to be fate, you know? Planet knows Cloud needs you, and needs much more than I can give him._

_It’s been, what? Few years since you’ve last seen him? All I know is that a lot of bad, terrible things were done to him, but I’ll be damned if he isn’t one stubborn bastard. Kinda like me, imagine that. He’ll pull out of this, and him seeing your face when he does might be the first kindness the Planet will have done for him in a long time._

_Hope you’ll also forgive me for not being there so you can hear this from the chocobo’s beak. Wish I could. There’s a lot more you deserve to know, but Shinra wants to close the book on me, and it’s safer if the both of you had some plausible deniability. How ‘bout those big words? Maybe one day, when it’s safe again in Midgar for me, I might pay the both of you a visit, try some of your famous menu, and apologize for my rudeness face-to-face._

_Anyway, it’s all up to you now, Tifa. I’ve done my part, now I think it’s time for yours._

_Oh, and Tifa? Thank you. Cloud’s a good guy, but he’s not a man of many words, so I’ll thank you on his behalf for the time being. If you’re the kind of woman he thinks you are, then I hope he has enough sense left in him to thank you himself one day, too._

The letter ends without a signature. She doesn’t notice the tear escaping the corner of her eye until it rolls down the bridge of her nose and splashes onto where it might have been on the page. 

Her whole body numbs. Scattered thoughts and questions swirl around her like a beehive. Above it all, though, only one thought keeps repeating, drowning out the rest.

Her train had arrived.

**Author's Note:**

> I always thought Marle's dog really does look suspiciously like the one in FFVII when Tifa finds Cloud, so I was thrilled for this prompt as an excuse to express that theory, too. lol


End file.
